By Rod Symington, W.S.F. Rules and Referees Committee
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|  Rod Symington is on the WSF Rules and Referees Committee and is a consultant on Rules and Refereeing to the USA. He has also been the Tournament Referee for, among others, the Women's Worlds, Pan Am Games, and Junior Men's and Women's Worlds. To contact Rod with questions or to enquire about clinics and his Squash Rules for Players, email him at symingto@uvic.ca
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The summer e-mail bag produced its usual range of questions on matters that ought to be common knowledge, but one e-mail in particular summed the perennial problem:
I wanted your perspective on an issue that has increasingly frustrated me regarding squash in the US—the quality of refereeing. Players do not seem to know the rules of the game and tournament officials do not seem to care about the quality of officiating. In tournaments, players, if victorious, are asked to referee the following match on their court. I have played in numerous A-level (5.5) tournaments during the past two years and the officiating has been abysmal, in fact a disgrace to the game of squash. The transgressions are too many to list, and I am sure you are quite aware of them.My question is what the USSRA should do to improve the quality of refereeing. Should you have to pass an exam in order to be ranked or play in a tournament? Should players referee their own matches? The Nationals were impacted by this issue and it speaks to the poor leadership of squash in this country. I would love to see you lead the charge in fixing this issue.
The writer’s points about ignorance of the rules and abysmal refereeing are well taken—a situation that has existed not just for years, but decades. Complaints about the quality of refereeing are perennial and epidemic, not just in North America, but all over the world.
Can we, indeed, “fix the issue?”
Let me try to lead the charge—and hope that it is not the Charge of the Light Brigade (“Into the valley of Death/Rode the six hundred”)…
I have been involved in teaching the Rules and training referees under the auspices of the USSRA since 1988, and in that time more than 1,000 new referees have been certified and approximately two dozen instructors trained. So things are getting better, but it is a long, slow process. A few things need to be borne in mind:
The USSRA has very limited resources, and there will never be enough money to promote a better knowledge of the Rules and to train referees in the way that we all would wish.
The second problem with the promotion of squash in the US is geography. The country is so vast, you can’t expect a small National Office to do everything for every local or regional association.
Furthermore, the complaint that there is a lack of leadership is a similar kind of statement to “They should do something about it.” In the case of squash “they” is all of us: if we truly believe in our sport, we all have a responsibility to promote it in every possible way—and that includes undertaking a few modest steps in regard to rules and refereeing.
If you are shocked and appalled at the standard of refereeing in your city or region, there are some simple things you can do to improve the situation:
1. Organize a city league (or several leagues at various levels, for both men and women).
2. Demand that anyone who wishes to play in the league attend a Rules clinic before the season begins.
3. Require that the winner of a match referee the following match.
4. Remember that if you want a good referee for your match, the following players want a good referee too. So if you win, will you be up to the challenge?
If such principles were adopted universally, the quality of refereeing in each region would markedly improve in just a season or two. Eventually, this improvement would make itself felt on the national level.
The improvement of the “abysmal” situation is a collective responsibility. Everyone involved in squash needs to make a personal commitment to becoming more knowledgeable about the Rules and more adept at refereeing. Squash is a very difficult game to referee, and it won’t do to “guess” at the correct decision following a call of “let,” and it won’t do to stand idly by and wait for things to improve. If you are not a part of the solution, you are a part of the problem. |
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